Apache Death (6 page)

"Jesus!" the bartender exclaimed behind Edge.

"Fast," Edge allowed softly, as the Englishman pulled up his right sleeve and replaced the tiny gun in a spring loaded holster strapped to the inside of his forearm. "How can you' cheat a little?" he called across the shocked silence which still pervaded the saloon, interrupted only by the whimpering of the injured man.

The Englishman began to gather up the money, stacking it neatly before pushing it into an inside pocket of his suit jacket. The smile was back on his face so that he again looked incapable of committing a bad act in an evil world. ''When I cheat second, old boy," he called, getting to his feet and putting on his derby. "Friend Carl here has been palming cards all night. So I dealt a few off the bottom."

He turned to head for the door and a murmur of conversation started to spread throughout the saloon. The pianist attempted a few tentative notes but stopped when he realized it was too soon. Edge started to turn toward the bar, but caught sight of Carl moving to the side, reaching around the front of his body to drag out the revolver with his left hand.

"Low on your left as you face!" Edge barked and watched through narrowed eyelids as the Englishman spun in a crouch, jerking his right arm. The delicate little weapon spat once more and a look of pained surprise entered the youngster's eyes as the small caliber bullet entered his throat. Then he pitched forward, dead before he sprawled on the table, staining the green baize crimson with gushing blood from a severed jugular vein.

"Thanks, old boy," the Englishman called across the new silence of the saloon. "Most kind of you,"

"Know who you just helped to kill, mister?" the bartender said as the Englishman scrolled out and Edge leaned on the bar to finish his beer.

"Some punk kid named Carl," Edge said with disinterest as a group gathered around the body and, the pianist and dancing girls attempted to force normality back into the saloon.

"Carl Drucker," the bartender supplied. ''His father's Wyatt Drucker. Got the biggest ranch in the territory, north of here. Old man Drucker thought Carl was the best thing since they invented money,"

Edge aimed for a spittoon and missed. "Slow, like that, the kid was mortgaged. The Englishman just foreclosed." He moved away from the bar, toward the door.

"Thought your own life was all that mattered?" Colonel Murray called.

"It is," Edge answered; continuing toward the door, not looking at where the soldiers stood. "I knew the dude was fast and I wanted to see how fast."

"Faster than you?" the lieutenant called scornfully.

Edge pushed out the swing doors without answering, but knowing what he would have had to admit, if a reply were demanded. But as soon as he stepped down off the sidewalk, heading across the street toward a restaurant from which a delicious smell of frying bacon was issuing, the question no longer had any immediate importance.

The wagon came sliding in off the cross street, pulled by four terrified white horses with blazing rags tied to their tails, driven by a whooping Apache brave. A hail of arrows arced in over the top of the wagon as more Indian warcries cut through the darkness, piercing it with streaks of flame from blazing flights.

"Looks like the natives are restless tonight," Edge muttered as he ducked for cover, firing at the wagon driver. 

THERE had been a moment of shocked inaction from the townspeople as the Apache attack was launched and it seemed to be as much a result of Edge's rifle shot as .the sight of the Indians which spurred Rainbow's citizenry into panicked retaliation. The bullet gouged a bloody furrow across the Apache's chest and he screamed in agony as he let go of, the reins and jerked erect, a moment before toppling sideways off the speeding wagon, crashing on top of an incredibly fat woman and bowling her into the path of the rear wheel. Her scream as the iron rim of the wheel crushed over her skull was lost in the fusillade of gunfire which suddenly erupted along the street, directed at the horde of galloping Apaches which had followed the wagon round the comer. They had exhausted their burning arrows now, but these had served their purpose as the wooden frontages of many buildings caught light, illuminating targets for a new wave of shafts, aimed to kill.

Two of the army sergeants rushed from the Lucky Ace, revolvers drawn but unfired as they pitched into the street, each with two arrows in his chest. Crouching tight against the saloon wall, with only shadow for cover, Edge snapped off two shots into the Indian pack and saw two bodies slide under the galloping hooves of following ponies. He dropped off the end of the sidewalk and ducked into an alley as an arrow embedded itself into the spot where he had been a moment before. Down at the fort the army bugler started to sound call but this and every other sound of the battle was suddenly swamped by a tremendous explosion that caused the ground to tremble and sent a waft of hot, stench-tainted air rushing along the street.

"Nice to start things with a bang, old boy."

Edge peered into the darkness and saw the Englishman rising from the ground, dusting off his suit. "The wagon?" 

"I would think so. Trying to blow off the gates of the fort. Went up too early though, I'd say."

A woman screamed and Edge turned his attention to the street. The whore from the Pot of Gold who had found his nakedness so beguiling, had been snatched up from the sidewalk by a horrifically daubed brave who had slung her face down across his pony, and was preparing to plunge a knife into her back. Edge fired and the bullet shattered the braves jaw. He fell backward off the pony and the woman-screamed again as blood and bone fragments showered her. The pony veered toward the side of the street and the woman's head crashed with a sickening, cracking sound into a sidewalk support. She thudded to the ground, head at an awkward angle.

"Bad luck, old boy," the Englishman said. "It was a gallant try."

"Can't you do any damn thing but talk?" Edge snapped at him as he pumped more bullets out toward the galloping Apaches, bringing down one pony and two braves.

"My little under and over weapon is only suited to card school disagreements; old boy," the Englishman' said easily. "I seldom carry a rifle."

Edge glanced back at the street, which was suddenly empty of live Apaches, the group having rode past, toward the fort. But there were at least a dozen near-naked, coppery brown bodies strewn in the dust, interspersed with as many dead white men and three women.

"There's a whole damn arsenal out there," Edge said as he fed more bullets into the Spencer's magazine.

"But they have such a violent kick," the Englishman said with distaste, grinning as Edge spun to look at him.

"You ain't that fastidious."

The Englishman's expression showed admiration. "A gunslinger with four-dollar words in his vocabulary. Rainbow surprises' me more and more."

Edge finished loading the rifle. "England ain't the only country with schools." He glanced out at the street. "What about that rifle? They'll be back through here."

The Englishman sighed. "Needs must when the devil drives, I suppose," he said, rose into a crouch and darted out toward the nearest discarded weapon. An arrow whistled through the flame-lit air, the noise of its travel cutting across the crackle of burning buildings. With the  skill of a man experienced in such things the Englishman hit the ground, rolled over twice, snatched up the rifle and was on his feet and running back in a fast, fluid  motion. The arrow thudded into the stock of the rifle. "You almost got me killed," he said with mock petulance as he crouched back in cover and started to pull out the arrow.

"Keep back, you idiot," Colonel Murray's voice barked from the saloon doorway. "They aren't finished yet."

"Strange creatures, Indians," the Englishman muttered in a conversational tone as he skillfully checked the load and action of the newly-acquired rifle. "So unsubtle."

On the roof of the restaurant across the street a man eased erect and loosed off a rifle shot. Something whistled through the air and the next moment the rifleman screamed and pitched forward, falling into the street, frantically trying to yank out a tomahawk that was sunk into his chest.

"But they can be effective," Edge rejoined as the thud of body on to sun-hardened ground ended the man's scream.

"That's only a three-dollar one," the Englishman said. 

"Colonel?" Edge called.

"What is it?" came the answer.

"Did they reach the fort?"

"Not even near it. Must know they didn't stand a chance when the explosive wagon blew too early."

"Then why don't the critters get the hell out?'' another voice caned from across the street.

 "This isn't the main attack," the colonel replied. "Probably trying to pick off as
many of us as they can to make it easier later. Now cut out the talk and watch out for them."

Silence settled again, broken only by the crackling of flames and whimpering of a woman. Edge looked away from the street down to the other end of the alley where a flatbed wagon was standing. An outside stairway canted up the wall of the side of the saloon and he rose and moved stealthily toward it

"Where are you going?" the Englishman whispered.

"Alleys have got two ends and I've only got one pair of eyes," Edge answered, starting up the stairway.

"Above and coming down!" the Englishman hissed.

Edge snapped his eyes up and saw the Indian leaping off the roof, tomahawk raised for the kill. Clearly silhouetted against the sky streaked with black smoke. Edge turned and fell full length on the stairs, whipping up the Spencer and squeezing the trigger. The force of the bullet smashing into the brave’s forehead twisted his falling body and it corkscrewed to thud headfirst into the alley. Edge pulled himself into a sitting position and glared down at the Englishman.

"All you had to do was pull the trigger."

The Englishman grinned. "You tested me in the saloon, old boy. You're rather fast yourself."

Edge grunted, got to his feet and went up the remainder of the steps, sensing rather than hearing the progress of the Englishman behind him. The gambler could move like a cat. At the top of the stairway there was an open landing with a rail at the side and by standing on the rail Edge could reach up and hook his hands over the roof, then haul himself aloft. There were no other Apaches up there, but Edge crouched low, careful not to silhouette himself against the skyline as the Englishman pulled, himself up on the roof.

They, squatted in silence for a moment, surveying the surrounding rooftops in the flickering light of the flames
and hearing the occasional rifle and revolver shot. Then Edge moved forward on all "fours.

"Hey," he whispered.

"Yes?" The 'Englishman was right behind him.

"What are we competing for?"

The Englishman laughed, curtailed it and snapped off a shot across the street. A brave in the process of hauling himself on to the sidewalk canopy in front of a grocery store, screamed and dropped back, clutching at his groin. He died under a hail of bullets from the soldiers and civilians in The 'Lucky Ace below.

"Spoiled it," the Englishman said. ''I wanted the bastard to suffer."

They reached the other end of the saloon roof and stretched out full length alongside each other to look down at the destruction wrought by the exploded wagon. It had ripped the facades off several buildings on the east side of the street and it was difficult to see how many people it had killed.

"Oh dear," the 'Englishman, said, "I don't envy Mortimer if he has to fit all those bits of bodies together before he buries them."

"You didn't answer my question," Edge said.

The Englishman grunted, "You don't gamble, you slept on your own in a bordello and you collected that bounty almost by accident. So I asked myself why you came to Rainbow in the middle of an Apache uprising. I answered that it has to be for the same reason I did."

Edge turned to look at him and saw that the smile had gone, that his companion was wearing the same expression with which he had regarded Carl Drucker moments before he shot him.

"Which makes it a competition, old boy. Because I'm not sharing it."

They held each other's gaze for a moment, then returned their attention to the street as a bugle sounded at the fort. The gates were thrown open and a troop of cavalrymen charged out, firing for effect as they emerged.

"They're playing my tune," Edge muttered.

"What is it?" the Englishman asked as the Apaches were flushed from hiding, pouring into the street on their ponies.

"Never did know the name," Edge replied, starting to fire at the galloping Indians. "Only know it means kill anything that moves."

The Englishman began to fire now, as others among the town's defenders opened up, trapping the Indians in a vicious crossfire as the cavalry showered them with lead from behind.

"Like fish in a barrel," the Englishman shouted gleefully as the braves began to tumble from their ponies, screaming their agonies. A bullet from Edge's Spencer smashed into the chest of a brave a split-second after the Apache had released an arrow which entered the throat of a man shooting from a doorway.

"That was Red Hagan," the Englishman said. "Bounty of a hundred dollars if you want to try to collect." He loosed off a shot and brought down a pony which pitched its rider onto the front of a burning building. A moment later the screaming brave rushed out into the street with his long hair blazing.

"Damn hothead," Edge muttered and ended the man's agony with a bullet in his heart. Another pony went down but its rider leaped clear and landed on the run as he drew a knife. He slashed at something in shadow and collapsed with blood spurting from three bullet holes in his back. A fat man rushed from the shadow, the crimson mess of his partially removed scalp flapping down over his forehead like an opened trapdoor.

"Looks like Sheriff Beale," Edge said easily.

"I always maintained he had a hole in the head," the Englishman came back dryly as Beale's chest was suddenly bristling with a half dozen arrows and his dead body collapsed in the path of the onrushing ponies.

Then the surviving Apaches were past, fleeing down the center of the street with the cavalry troop behind them, the ponies widening the gap so that the rifle fire became sporadic as it diminished into the distance.

"Get some buckets and put out these fires," Colonel Murray shouted from below, then moving into sight at the center of the street.

Other men started to move then, seemingly with no purpose. But under Murray's direction a human chain was formed and sloshing buckets of water began to pass  along the line. Edge and the Englishman got to their feet, the latter carefully dusting off the dirt from his suit. Edge eyed him reflectively for a moment, then began to reload his Spencer.  

"Don't suppose," he said at length, "you'd believe me if I said I didn't know what you were talking about a while back."

The Englishman was wearing his easy smile again. "Then why did you come to Rainbow?"

"Clean sheets and a bath."